Field
The present disclosure relates to oil separator systems and methods for allocation and measurement of separated oil and water.
Description of Related Art
The process of extracting oil from the ground in surface operations includes treating or separating the solution extracted from the ground into at least oil, water, and gas. The extracted solution can be fed into separators which work to separate the oil and water from the gas or to separate the solution into at least oil, water, and gas. The amount of oil, water, and gas extracted from a well site can be measured and tracked for a variety of reasons. The measurement can be used to keep operations running with effective production rates, to mitigate royalty payment disputes, and to help gain insight into issues in the treatment and separation of oil.
The measurement can also form the basis of a financial transaction between oil companies and royalty owners. The financial transaction that takes place between an oil company and a royalty owner can be based at least in part on terms in a signed lease. The landowner may collect a royalty payment based at least in part on the amount of product that is extracted and sold from the lease. Typically, a well site includes multiple wells, which may include different lease holders or lease agreements in place for each of the wells. Oil produced for the entire site may be aggregated into a battery of storage tanks for transfer to trucks or to a pipeline. Payments to an individual lease holder can be based on a production rate of each specific well where the measurement is performed periodically (e.g., monthly) combined with periodic measurements of production of other wells at the well site. A corresponding percentage of total site output may then be allocated to each well based on these periodic measurements.
Acquiring measurement data typically includes connecting a well to a separator and connecting the output of the separator to a storage tank. Workers can then manually measure the oil level in the tank before and after a specified time interval and use the difference in height to calculate flow for the well.